Benny Geys

Biografi

BENNY GEYS (°1977) is Professor in Economics at BI Norwegian Business School in Oslo and Research Professor at Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB). His research focuses on (local) government performance, intergovernmental relations and civic engagement.

Publikasjoner

Vitenskapelige publikasjoner
I mediaAndre

Titl, Vitezslav & Geys, Benny (2019)

Political Donations and the Allocation of Public Procurement Contracts

Boenisch, Peter; Geys, Benny & Michelsen, Claus (2018)

This article analyses how the presence of a dominant group of voters within the electorate affects voter turnout. Theoretically, we argue that its absolute size affects turnout via increased free-riding incentives and reduced social pressure to vote within a larger dominant group. Its relative size compared to other groups within the electorate influences turnout through instrumental and expressive responses – in both the dominant and dominated groups – to the degree of electoral competition between groups. Empirical evidence from a large cross section of German municipalities is in line with these theoretical predictions. The observed effects should be taken into account when redesigning electoral jurisdictions through, for instance, municipal mergers or gerrymandering.

De Witte, Kristof; Geys, Benny & Schönhage, Nanna Lauritz (2018)

Political economists have long maintained that politicians respond to both (re-)election and financial incentives. This article contributes to the latter literature by analysing whether, when and how local office-holders respond to the economic incentives embedded in exogenously imposed population thresholds leading to an increased number and remuneration of local politicians. Building on insights from the urban economics and public finance literatures, we argue that local politicians may strategically adjust fiscal and housing policies to stimulate in-migration when approaching a population threshold where their remuneration increases. Using data from all 589 Belgian municipalities over the period 1977–2016, our results confirm that approaching important population thresholds causes lower local tax rates and the granting of additional building permits (particularly for apartments). These policy changes occur early in the election cycle and, at least for housing policy, are restricted to incumbent mayors themselves expecting to benefit from crossing the population threshold.

Slegten, Caroline; Geys, Benny & Heyndels, Bruno (2018)

Sex differences in budgetary preferences among Flemish local politicians

Recent evidence of increasing income heterogeneity within developed countries has reignited debates concerning the redistribution of income and wealth. In this article, we contribute to this debate by assessing the role of individuals’ jurisdictional identification for their preferences toward intrafederation redistributive financial flows. Incorporating insights from social identity theory in a model of redistributive taxation, we show that federal, rather than local, identification can lead individuals to shift their redistribution preferences independent of their narrowly defined personal economic interests. Moreover, contrary to conventional wisdom, welfare state support will sometimes be decreasing in national identification. We empirically assess these predictions using individual-level data from the 2008 German General Social Survey (ALLBUS) and a 2013-2014 survey among Belgian local politicians. Our findings provide strong support for the model’s core predictions in both settings

Geys, Benny & Sørensen, Rune Jørgen (2018)

Never Change a Winning Policy? Public Sector Performance and Politicians’ Preferences for Reforms

Despite the increasing stress on performance in public sector organizations, there is still little empirical evidence on whether—and if so, how—politicians respond to performance information. This article addresses this research gap by linking registry statistics on school performance in Norway's 428 municipalities with data from an information experiment embedded in a survey of local politicians. Findings show that school performance bears only a weak relationship to politicians' preferences for resource-related reforms, but it strongly affects preferences for governance-related reforms, indicating the importance of accounting for heterogeneity across alternative types of (school) reforms. Moreover, local politicians are, on average, well informed about school performance. This reflects the force of local inhabitants' high information level on politicians' accountability.

Trondal, Jarle; Murdoch, Zuzana & Geys, Benny (2018)

How pre- and post-recruitment factors shape role perceptions of European Commission officials

Individuals' role perceptions are central guides to their behavior and choices as members of an organization. Understanding organizational dynamics thus requires knowledge about the determinants of such role perceptions, as well as whether—and when—organizations can influence them. This article brings forward a theoretical framework allowing for both prerecruitment (extraorganizational) and post-recruitment (intraorganizational) determinants of individuals' role perceptions, and examines its empirical implications using a large-N data set of temporary officials in the European Commission. We find that intergovernmental and epistemic role perceptions are strongly linked to pre-recruitment factors (such as educational and professional background), whereas postrecruitment factors (such as length of affiliation and embeddedness within the Commission) are the main driving force behind supranational and departmental role perceptions. This heterogeneity in the importance of pre- and postrecruitment factors for distinct role perceptions has important consequences for conceptualizing organizational change.

Geys, Benny & Qari, Salmai (2017)

Will you still trust me tomorrow? The causal effect of terrorism on social trust

National officials working in international bureaucracies regularly invoke the fear that member states strategically use such officials for influencing decision making and agenda-setting to their advantage. This article theoretically analyses conditions under which the autonomy of national civil servants in international bureaucracies might become compromised. The ensuing predictions are then tested using a unique survey among seconded national experts (SNEs) in the European Commission (N ≈ 400). Finally, evaluating the characteristics linked to reduced autonomy among SNEs in the Commission, the article illustrates that these officials are, in practice, likely to be relatively independent from member state influence.

Geys, Benny & Murdoch, Zuzana (2010)

Recent research illustrates that two distinct interpretations and operationalizations of ?bridging? and ?bonding? social networks co-exist in the literature (based on links between diverse networks or between socio-economic groups within a given network, respectively), and that these do not coincide in empirical applications. The present contribution first confirms this conclusion using data from the United Kingdom. Then, we suggest a simple way to integrate both existing approaches into a more general measure of bridging and bonding. Applying this more general index to UK and Flemish data, a) provides stronger empirical support for the idea that memberships in bridging groups are more strongly linked to positive civic values than those in bonding ones, and b) shows that the extended index behaves more consistently across institutional settings (i.e. Flanders and the UK) than both underlying measures independently

Geys, Benny & Murdoch, Zuzana (2008)

How to make head or tail of ‘bridging’ and ‘bonding’?: addressing the methodological ambiguity

British Journal of Sociology, 59(3), s. 435- 454.

Geys, Benny & Leiren, Merethe Dotterud (1)

How can the stigma of public transport as the 'poor man's vehicle' be overcome to enhance sustainability and climate change mitigation